ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage (4 page)

Something tickled at Baxter’s memory. “Kate,” he said. “What the hell happened to Kate?”

Al-Sif’s expression darkened. “She’s alive.”

But before Baxter could follow up, his team radio went. It was Juice.
“Baxter. What the hell? Get back here. Over.”

Baxter drew a breath. “This way,” he said to al-Sif. “You first.”

The Somali looked annoyed again, but complied. To avoid anyone getting shot, Baxter hit his radio. “Juice, I’ve got, erm, a prisoner.”

In ten seconds they were back around on the open side of the crash site. And, this time, Juice did put the drone on autopilot. And he was leaning out around the lip of the cargo door, perfectly motionless, lightly gripping and aiming his SIG assault rifle.

Al-Sif stopped and put his hands up. When no one spoke, he repeated his claim. “You promised me a ride out of here, back to Britain. I’m here. Take me.”

Juice just eyed him over his rifle sight.

* * *

Two hundred miles north and 1,500ft up above the deck, there was only wind and sky – and engine noise, still some of that, thank God.

Out beyond the nominally blast-proof but still badly spider-webbed cockpit glass, the great expanse of the green earth spread out in rolling forested hills below, rising up to mountains at the northern border of land and sea. And the glory of the sparkling ocean out beyond that.

And there was also smoke. Quite a lot of smoke.

Hailey got a nose full of it, coughing and spluttering as she regained consciousness, hand instinctively going for her oxygen mask. But she quickly realized she had much bigger problems, and was probably getting enough oxygen to function. And as she regained her faculties and remembered where she was, she realized she also didn’t mind the coughing fit. It meant she was alive.

Plus still in the air. Which had definitely been in doubt when that fourth
Vikhr
missile, launched by the Black Shark attack helo, had exploded practically beside her head.

The fact that she was still flying also meant she’d managed to engage the autopilot before she blacked out. She verified this with a quick review of the touchscreen menus – which still seemed operable, though the display flickered slightly. She now saw she’d even managed to get herself pointed north, toward the carrier… and all of that must have happened only a few minutes ago, even at her current low airspeed of around 250mph.

The
Kennedy
was already in sight, out in the gulf past Mt. Shimbiris, which anchored the whole mountain range on the northern coast. Hailey was so relieved she nearly wept. But then she noticed something unexpected – the ship was under way. She could see the wake behind it. Also, it wasn’t facing the direction she had left it, but was now heading east out toward open ocean.

Ka-BOOM!!!

Something exploded behind her. And, while there was no way she could turn around, much less get outside the aircraft to have a look, she pretty quickly worked out what it was – her damned engine. It was dead or dying, and she was losing thrust fast. She paused one second to acknowledge those critics of the F-35 program, who had said a single-engine design was too risky and a terrible idea.

But one second was all she had.

Because after that she had to figure out what the hell to do, and how to save herself. And, as her airspeed dropped rapidly…

She knew she was going to have to do it fast.

* * *

In the cargo hatch of the grounded Seahawk, Juice exhaled and slightly relaxed his posture. And he thought:
Well, hell, we actually do have Patient Zero now
. Maybe it wasn’t so crazy that al-Sif was due what he had been promised – a ticket back to Britain. Then again, having this Islamist fighter in camp was a bad risk. A strong case could be made for just slotting him right now.

Juice squinted, aimed, and considered.

But then Baxter spoke to al-Sif, putting to rest his dreams of a flight out. “Sorry, dude. We’re probably walking out of here – if we get out at all.”

Juice didn’t react to this. The kid clearly understood that this mission to maintain control of the UCAV might be their last. Recovering them afterward was not going to be a big priority, definitely not compared to getting P-Zero out and back to Britain.

But then Baxter spoke to Juice. “He’s got a ground vehicle.”

“Where?”

“Huh,” al-Sif said, spitting into the foliage. The implication was obvious. He wasn’t handing over his one trump card. “I can also help you. I can fight the Russians.” He tapped the side of the SCAR Mk20 rifle he had wisely kept slung at his side.

Baxter said, “I don’t quite want to say I’ll vouch for him. But the dude can definitely fight. And, after what just happened at the Stronghold, he’s probably going to have little love for Spetsnaz.”

Juice considered. Having only one on security, never mind a young inexperienced guy, was dodgy. And having a ground vehicle would definitely provide them with some options, which were always good things to have, due to never knowing for sure what the hell was going to happen next. It would also give them a chance of getting out of there alive after the UCAV ran out of fuel.

Juice pointed two fingers at his eyes, then pointed them both at Baxter’s, and then finally at al-Sif. His meaning was clear. But then he squinted and changed his mind. “Fly the drone,” he said.

Baxter nodded. But instead of moving into the Seahawk, he reached to al-Sif’s back – which had a big Milkor multi-grenade launcher slung across it. Before he could react, Baxter unclipped the strap and took it off him. Al-Sif spun around.

Baxter checked the weapon, then said. “This belonged to a much, much better man than you.” He meant Maximum Bob, the former Team Six SEAL and CIA paramilitary officer – and whose face, and last moments, Baxter could still see with perfect clarity.

Al-Sif opened his mouth to protest.

“Not a fucking word,” Baxter said.

Juice was ready to back him up. But he didn’t need to.

* * *

Hailey honestly didn’t know if she could make it to the carrier now, with her engine failing fast – and even if she did, it would be a bad risk trying to land the mortally wounded bird on the flattop. She’d probably only get one attempt at a trap – and she’d also get the opportunity to kill flight deck crew and damage the ship itself, if things went sideways.

There was only one runway in the region she knew of that was long enough, at least 8,000 feet, for her to safely use – and it was at Djibouti Airport. A quick eyeball of the map told her this was closer than the
Kennedy
. And it would be a lot safer to land on the ground – or, at any rate, she would only endanger herself. That decided it. She nursed the sputtering bird into a left bank, skirting the coast and heading toward what was probably her only hope of getting back on the ground alive.

But the engine sputtered and belched again, and power dropped even lower – and then flamed out entirely. Dead stick.

Okay
, she thought,
Plan B
.

She was going to have to eject.

Hailey wasn’t wild about this plan. It was well known that the heavy helmet needed to fly this high-tech aircraft increased the risk of neck injury during ejection – little rocket engines were about to launch her out of the cockpit at somewhere between 12 and 18 Gs – and the lighter the pilot, the worse the risk. Even worse than that was the fact that she’d then be stranded on the ground in Somalia. But, then again, she liked this plan better than the next one down the list, which was a controlled crash.

She released the fail-safe, then pulled the eject handle beside her seat. The first part of the ejection sequence happened – namely, the busted-up canopy unlocked, rotated up and out, and got ripped away by the slipstream. And then…

Nothing.

No launch, no rockets. No Gs, no neck damage. No ejection.

When she looked down to her right she could see several things. First, she belatedly saw that she was personally torn up and bleeding. It didn’t look terrible, but then again it didn’t look great. She hadn’t felt a thing since waking up, for some reason. Second, she could actually see the warping of the airframe. It no doubt looked a hell of a lot worse from the outside. But even in here she could see the structural nano-composite shell was impinging on her seat.

She was trapped in this dying aircraft, stuck in her non-ejection seat. Unless she climbed out and leapt for it, her fate was now locked to that of this plane. And both of them were losing altitude fast.

Not looking good for our hero
, she thought.

She was actually okay with dying – because before being shot down, she had gotten the job done as a combat pilot. Of that, there could be no doubt. She’d destroyed half the ground convoy threatening the shore team, and driven the other half off. She believed she’d shot down the Black Shark attack helo – though she’d probably never know for sure.

She had stepped up – and been equal to her great task. So she could die happy. And when she saw her old man, the admiral, up there in heaven – or, more likely, down in that other place – maybe he’d even be pleased to see her.

Well, probably not pleased. But maybe not a total dick, for once.

Looking up and out, she could see the airport coming up in the distance. But the dusty brown surface of Somalia was coming up faster. She knew she was going in hard. So she figured she had better focus on doing it in some kind of survivable way.

Okay, dead-stick landing it is, then…

But as she fought the unresponsive controls, she remembered why it was called a “dead stick.”

That was also about to describe the whole aircraft.

And probably her, too.

* * *

Juice spat tobacco juice across their stacked wood defenses. With Baxter having taken over the flying for now, Juice had two hands free to get his tobacco pouch out and get a wodge in. And he had a minute to make sure their new guest wasn’t going to slot them both and fly the UCAV to Bradford. He hadn’t taken his eye off al-Sif once.

“What?” al-Sif asked.

Juice spat again. He wanted to ask him where he got the Gucci rifle, not to mention the grenade launcher. But this was the post-Apocalypse. Everything was going cheap.

Instead he asked, “You know what we’re doing here?”

Al-Sif puffed down slightly. “A vaccine. A cure.”

Juice nodded – but then cocked his head at the Somali’s expression. “You really don’t give a damn about that, do you?”

Al-Sif squinted back. “I will help you. I will do what I can for you, including fight. I just want to get out of here.”

Juice believed him. Baxter had said as much, when they first debated whether to trust him. Baxter said he was smart, non-ideological, and supremely self-interested. As far as their interests and al-Sif’s aligned, they could trust him. But that was as far as it went.

“You said we must walk out,” al-Sif said. “But I have a vehicle. We should go. We can drive out. Then your people can pick us up.”

Juice just shook his head slowly.
Not happening.

“How long must we stay?”

Juice checked his watch, on the inside of his left wrist. “One hour ten. Once that drone is out of fuel and down in the dirt, then we can think about us.”

Al-Sif nodded. His expression said he understood. And that he agreed to the terms. Juice decided this was an alliance of convenience – but one that would last, for the time being. At least as long as nothing unexpected happened to test it.

He spat out his tobacco, took a breath, and stood up to go back and take over the drone – but then saw his tobacco pouch had fallen on the ground. He squatted back down to pick it up.

The wicked snap of two collapsing air pockets sounded inches over the top of his helmet.

He dropped electrically behind cover.

And then the other side of the stacked wood in front of his face started chipping and spitting from a flurry of incoming rounds. The sound of the impacts in isolation was surreal – no sound of shots, no muzzle flashes, nothing. Someone out there had superb suppressors.

And they also had excellent position – gained by what must have been a supremely stealthy approach through the bush.

The crash site was being assaulted.

And unless that assault was opposed, they would be overrun.

Juice stole a look over at al-Sif, who was also hunkered down behind the barricade. And he tried to gauge what his new ally was going to do in the next few seconds.

He honestly didn’t know.

Nothing to Defend

Seahawk Crash Site, Nugal River Valley

Juice stayed down just long enough to satisfy himself that Baxter, piloting the drone, was under sufficient cover. He was down on the deck, effectively behind both the wooden barricade and quite a lot of Seahawk. But none of that would matter if they were overrun. And Juice knew the only guys they had been fighting lately were not the kind to hang out and trade rounds.

They would be coming – hard and fast.

Hell, they’d probably only kicked things off without being in position to finish them because Juice gave them such a good look at his fat head. Now he’d been given a second chance. Life could be generous that way. The question was always what you did with it.

Juice armed and hurled two grenades into the bush, roughly down the vector of the incoming fire. Then he moved as far away from his starting position as he could while staying behind the barricade. When the grenades crumped off, he popped and started firing. Winning gunfights was always about dominance. Whoever had it was on the fast track to victory. If you didn’t have it, you had to seize it back – fast and with authority.

When his bolt locked back on an empty chamber, he and his mag both dropped behind the barricade, a fresh one coming out and up. As he rammed it home, he checked al-Sif again. “Well?” he said.

The Somali was hunkered down out of the line of fire. He said, “We should go! Dying here helps no one.”

Juice just shook his head sadly. “You got a better hole, dude, you go to it. But if you want to survive this, you’ll get on the team – which is about to push out and counter-assault.”